NENC CC Rep

NENC County Coordinator Representative Candidate

Hello, USGenWeb members. My name is Mary Ann Lubinsky from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I am the current Northeast/North Central County Coordinator Representative and honored to have been nominated for the position again. Most of my information below is the same as two years ago, but it is still true today.

I am a widow with 2 grown sons, a daughter-in-law, 2 granddaughters, 1 granddogger, and a cockatiel. I have several hobbies but the two most important ones are websites and genealogy. I have been doing both for many years.

I am the webmaster and member of the Board of Directors of the Schuylkill County Historical Society, as well as webmaster and member of the Schuylkill County Council for the Arts. I have been a member of PAGenWeb/USGenWeb for just about 11 years.

Web Experience

I have 20 years experience designing and maintaining websites after taking an interest in 1996. Upon completion of the International Correspondence School course in Website Design, my first sites were done using Microsoft FrontPage 97, then FP 98, then FP 2000. It was a great program back then, very easy to use. I still have quite a few sites on the web that were authored and are maintained using FP 2000. I also tried Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft ExpressionWeb. Currently I am using WordPress for some of my own sites as well as some that I maintain.

In 2007, I took classes in HTML/CSS and then began hand coding most of the sites that I worked on. In 2013, I started to use WordPress, which I really like. I still enjoy using HTML/CSS which allows me to customize any of the hundreds of WordPress themes.

Sometime in late 1995, my son and I began to work on both my husband’s and my own family trees and the quest continues today. These two hobbies of genealogy and website design/maintenance have become my life. I also enjoy helping others to find their ancestors.

USGENWEB and PAGENWEB

In late 2005, I adopted the Luzerne County PAGenWeb site. If it wasn’t for the patience of Joe Patterson and Judy Banja, I would not have lasted. I finally got the hang of everything and then never looked back. In those 9 years, I have become County Coordinator for Carbon, Columbia, Dauphin, Erie, Montour, and my home county, Schuylkill. Some of these had been abandoned.

In March, 2011, when Nancy Janyszeski became PA State Coordinator, I asked her to consider me for the Eastern State Assistant Coordinator. She did and it has been wonderful working with both Nancy and Ellis Michaels.

I have been enjoying my time with USGenWeb and PAGenWeb but we really need more volunteers who can design or at least maintain a website. Over the last couple of years, we have had people who have come forward to volunteer but they have no idea how to do a webpage. I think we need to focus on that crucial part of recruiting as well as keeping our information free.